When I'm Half Asleep

To dream a sleeping dream, takes one requirement...being asleep.

What I was taught years ago in a series of classes on Sleep and Dreaming at The Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, was that our sleeping brains go through stages of light to deeper sleep, corresponding to a change in our frequency brain wave patterns. To dream takes time, sometimes hours into a night of sleeping. This is the natural way.

Rapid eye movement and body paralysis occur during deep dreaming sleep. That's where the real dreams are happening! But I found there are lighter dreams. These happen to me when I have my head propped on my arm and can't keep my eyes open....I'm too tired...and half asleep.

My friend and fellow dreamer, Sasa Rakezic, drew in his comic books what he called Hypnogogic Visions. These visions would bubble up just as the dreamer began to fall asleep. So, not only can we star in our own dreams, walking though the complex landscapes of our deep, REM sleep but we can peek into these environments as if through a window, in the very first stages of sleep.

I began to notice these visions myself, as his comic drawings inspired me to look for them. I drew mine as well and collected them in a booklet I called HYPNA G (Plain Vain Press).

Dozing Off

Lately I've discovered another hypnagogic aspect to the moments when eyes close with fatigue and we begin to nod (literally) off. It concerns what can be mentally "heard," instead of "seen" in short visions. These voices are also short snippets, but are heard as if picked up like tuning into a radio station, or heard through a wall or open window.

Could it be the same window that opens at the top of the spiral staircase that decsends down into our subconscious? Are we hearing the calls of the dream birds ? Are we testing out characters we are about to create and interact with in our extended narratives? Or are they simply memories? or simply ghosts?

I've collected some of these and hand-lettered what I "tuned-in," so I can print another hypnagogic booklet called HYPNA A (A=audio).

Because Hypna A only occurs during the altered state of being half asleep, I'm not worried that I'm "hearing voices" or going crazy.

They could be snippets of conversations heard & recorded long ago and I'm just hearing that mix tape of memories. But I tend to think I'm tuning into the human collective unconscious. Like an internet of energy that is totally invisible, unless you are able to log in...and access the bandwidth. I haven't heard any foreign languages, but I have heard some foreign accents and heard males and females. How a brain could filter languages is just a mysterious offshoot of the larger mystery which is Hypna A.

Maybe you can try to leave your "tuner" on, when you are on the verge of falling asleep, either at home or work, and record what you may see or hear, with your eyes and ears closed.